Pipevine swallowtail larvae...its the first year for them, I have had the Dutchman's Pipe growing for two years with no takers, holy moly are they laying eggs.
Here is my larvae du jour...
Congrats! Hope you have lots of those plants. I picked up a dozen 4 " A. fimbriata plants last Friday after the cats finished off all my pipevine foliage. And looks like I'll have to go back again for more. They eat like Monarchs! Do you have your plants in the sun? They look a little scorched or something. In this heat I'm keeping mine out of direct sun....except for very early morning.
We have had a horrible heat wave with no rain the last two weeks. High 90s-100s, if something isn't in the shade it looks stressed in the afternoon.
Datura....where in FW do you live? Close to me I hope, I would love to get some of the Poly cats this year. I am in the SW area near the loop.
edited to say I meant Pipevine swallowtail not poly.
This message was edited Jun 18, 2008 6:10 AM
These plants are in partial shade and yes some of the leaves look bad. I have 3 others in full sun and no problems with the leaves in 2 years since it was planted.
Yes, they are voracious eaters, its funny when I first saw them on this plant they looked like little soldiers lined up at only a quarter inch long.....within a few days they were big and few days later they were huge. I also noticed that time from forming a chrysalis to eclosion is really fast also. I think it was about a week and a half The poor thing was trying to hang on the branch of the tree in 30-40 miles of wind. I felt so bad that I cut the limb off and placed the branch in a calm area, at that point is when I caught it forming the chorion, I have some great pics of the transformation. . Pic of a larvae trying to morph into chrysalis. I am in Saginaw, Tx.
Linda...any chance I could beg a plant or two off of you or perhaps we could work something out to get more? There is absolutely nowhere around here that sells the pipevine, the plants I have are getting eggs but the cats won't eat it and they die. It is very frustrating. Let me know if we can work something out.
:) Kim
Blue Eyes do you mean me in Saginaw, Tx or Linda in NE Medina, Tx.? I do have some small plants coming up from re-seeding.
I will save the seeds from these also and then put them on my tradelist. If I had some from last year I would have sent them to you for a SASE, but I just checked my inventory and they are all gone. I originally got mine from a plant that I purchased on Ebay from a person in Florida. Another pic of the same morping.
Kim, I think I'm going back to that nursery Wednesday after I drop DH off for a medical appointment. I could get some for you also if you'd like and send them. Let me know. They have lots of 4" pots of it. And I have seed I could send you also....but growing the plants from seeds takes quite a while even if the seeds germinate. I've never had a lot of these cats before. The last couple of years I've only raised a few PVSTs I brought home from a nursery...nothing ever turned up on my plants. And before that I only had a fairly small number at a time when any showed up.
Sheila...I think those are Pipevine Swallowtail cats that she has...maybe I'm wrong, but Mellie said the PVSTs have longer antenna thingies than the Polydamas...and those antennas on hers look as long as the ones on my PVST cats. In Texas the PVST cats have 2 colors...some are dark cats, some are kind of reddish cats.
Sorry...I meant LindaTX8...she mentioned buying all those pipevine plants. I didn't realize both of you were Linda!
LindaTX8....I'd be thrilled to take you up on that offer. I planted that pipevine I have now because I was told that aristolochia species were a larval host. Now I guess I just have it for the flowers. I have seed and tried to germinate them this past spring but nothing really came up. Please let me know what I would owe you and where to send the money. And thanks so much!!
Kim
Here are a couple GF cats I saw today.
Here is a little black swallowtail cat on dill.
This message was edited Jun 18, 2008 11:02 AM
These are Pipevine Swallowtail. Like I said be patient it two years of growing these for the butterflies to find them.